Monticello Plaza adding more tenants

Published
12:00 am CST, Thursday, February 26, 2015

GODFREY — A discount grocery store and a clothing retailer are among the new developments coming to Godfrey’s Monticello Plaza.

The big addition will be a Ruler Foods grocery store, a development that will occupy roughly 23,000 square feet in the strip mall. A source with knowledge of the development confirmed the store’s identity, saying it will have a projected opening date sometime in June. Officials with Ruler Foods or its parent company, the Kroger Company, have yet to confirm the plans.

Once open, the grocery store will offer deeply discounted food and grocery items. A Ruler Foods store opened in Belleville, Ill., last November, and a location recently opened in Granite City as well. A Ruler Foods store is also reportedly being built in Collinsville.

While the largest development, the grocery store is just one of the new tenants coming to the shopping center. A sign announcing retail clothing store Factory Connection is “coming soon” recently appeared in the window of the former Godfrey Book Store. The name-brand clothing discounter is set to occupy approximately 4,500 square feet in the mall.

Factory Connection’s website boasts the retailer has close to 300 stores in 15 states. The clothier has eight existing locations in Illinois but none within Madison County. No timetable for the store’s arrival has been announced.

A third development north of the grocery store is also in the works, according to the source. The new store, which the source said is a “regional retailer,” will fill roughly 6,000 square feet. The source said the new retailer will “be a pretty popular place as well.”

The source said other developments are being discussed as well, but nothing is finalized at this time.

The businesses would be the latest to occupy space in the shopping center since Midwest Asset Group LLC purchased the strip mall in 2011. Pizza World and a cellular telephone store both moved in at the plaza in 2013.

The space set to house Ruler Foods was last home to Hood’s Discount Home Center. Before that, it was a Park N Shop, an independent grocery store. Hood’s closed in September 2012 and had sat vacant until construction began in recent months.

Godfrey Mayor Mike McCormick said all the new developments in recent years have been welcomed by the village.

“When (Midwest Asset Group) came in and bought that and gave it a facelift, improved the parking lot and improved the entrances to it, it’s been a very positive sign for the village of Godfrey,” McCormick said.